Memorial

XLI.Joan

SHE hadn’t heard from Lew and that didn’t feel right.

Pradeep was in town. She fucked him, over at the Four Seasons. He went to the bathroom and shut the door. This time he didn’t light incense. A minute after he settled back in bed the smell from his offal wafted out like half-burnt oatmeal.

When Joan told him she’d had an affair with Lew, the consul clucked and laughed. He wagged his finger and said, “Naughty.” She was about to get pissed when he reversed himself and told her it was probably a good thing. Pradeep really had a gift — the unctuous diplomat through and through. In this case, she needed someone to sponsor her insanity.

“You know,” said Pradeep. “It’s actually quite a smart move — he likes a ‘raider.’ He hobnobs with the corporate raiders, no? So he admires bravado, especially in a brainy woman. Look, this isn’t a guy who gets threatened by men or women. So don’t beat yourself up. And you know you’re toe-to-toe against Rem and God knows who else. Because Lew’s not going to tell you. I agree, he will use Goldsworthy either way. Goldsworthy is not your concern. It’s the secret ones who are your concern. But I don’t see this ‘alliance’ as a problem. This grande affaire. The odds were always stacked against you, Joanie, and you know it.” He pronounced against like an Englishman, which had a way of comforting her. “Did you hear he was going to do something in bronze?”

“Who?” said Joan.

“Andy—Goldsworthy is going to do something bronze-worthy.”

“You’re kidding. Who said that? Lew?”

“No…I don’t know where I heard it.”

“If Goldsworthy’s doing something in bronze, then I am so fucked.”

“But why?”

“Because he’s supposed to be working in rock or leaves or snaky little arrowheads. Anything that’s built to last is going to majorly threaten me.”

“Don’t be threatened, OK, Joanie? It’s not worth it. Maybe I was dreaming.”

THEY went to Barneys and she offered to buy him an extravagant pair of shoes. He declined, so Joan tricked him into waiting for her at the restaurant while she closed the deal. She was going to get him Barker Blacks but thought the skull-and-bones thing kind of lame. She settled on a pair of Berlutis, fashioned from scarified cowhide; the marks were made when the animals rubbed against barbed-wire fencing. The salesman warmed to this macabre embellishment with the inverted pride of a car salesman talking about the efficiency of hybrid engines. The loafers were almost 13-hundred dollars.

Pradeep drove them to the Coldwater Canyon park where all the rich ladies took their newborns.

She’d had enough of herself and asked about his life, something she usually avoided.

“How is Manonamani?”

“I think she is well.” Then came a sly, sad little laugh.

“Do you like having kids?”

“Yes. I love it. Even when things aren’t going so wonderfully. It’s hard for her, more than me. She doesn’t leave the house when she’s here — in the States — it’s gotten worse. I think it’s a phobia. We don’t even go to the opera anymore. It is 100 times as bad since we lost Ghulpa. Our runaway nanny — our runaway bride only she had no groom as far as we could tell! It has been hell finding a replacement. Also Mani’s father is ill, and her mom not far behind. Sometimes it is a bit ‘parlous.’ So she is there now, with the babies. In Delhi. I go when I can. There is not much between us, body to body. For events at the house, she no longer comes out. She stays ‘in quarters.’ It isn’t easy and will affect my next post. They hear about everything in Delhi, believe me. But all’s health is good. And this is what is important.”

He knocked the wood bench with his knuckles.

“How much time do you have left?”

“As consul? A year, maybe 14 months. Then: back to Delhi. I am afraid I will become Tony Bennett. I will leave my heart in San Francisco.” He put an amorous hand on the ridge of her hip. “I hope to leave my loins here.”

He winked and she groaned. He laughed.

“Then?” she asked.

“Then? Who knows. Maybe a desk job. I am a corps man to my core! Perhaps Sydney. Or Tanzania — Dar es Salaam is very close to Mauritius. We have to go, Joan; Flic en Flac. Iceland! We could have a frigid rendezvous and slowly melt away. I hear there’s an extraordinary B&B carved from ice, courtesy of your El Zorro, Queen Hadid!”

“That’s Finland, you ass.”

“We could have that special dish,” he said mischievously. “You know: rotting shark! This is the delicacy Björk’s husband told me of at the BAM dinner. You can be poisoned if you don’t let it rot long enough. Did you know this, Joan? But the same is true of anything, no? We could eat smoked puffin with skyr and fly back to Delhi for goat fetus.”

He could see she was in a mood. He laughed and did the diplomatic dance that came so naturally, stroking the nape of her neck, saying he was “just making jokes.” He “more than valued” their time together and said she shouldn’t worry about Lew Freiberg, “not at all,” and that he’d do his best to “counterspy and lobby” on her behalf. He was a sweet soul — the only man she’d ever been able to share bed and friendship with, which said more about him than her. She liked to tell Pradeep that she was a “tough nut.”

As they strolled to the car, past runaway mommies, nannies, and absurdly expensive perambulators, he spoke seriously of a “getaway.” They both knew it wouldn’t happen but his tones were so enticing, so dulcet as they say, so diplomatic, that she let hands and voice wash over her. He wanted to show her the ashram in Pondicherry, where Antonin Raymond and even Lew Freiberg’s favorite “interior decorator,” Nakashima, had practiced as devotees of the Hindu mystic Sri Aurobindo. She’d heard of the place and of course was interested — for professional reasons. You needed special permission to even visit Golconde, as it was called: never a problem for her “connected” friend. She’d seen pictures of it, filled with teak, walls of crushed-seashell plaster and burnished limestone. Pradeep was the consummate consul; he seduced by getting under the world’s pearlescent skin.

WHEN Joan got home, a couple of packages were waiting, one large, one small. The labels said GUERDON LLC. The part-time doorman brought them up.

The handwritten card said: “Let’s Get Lost (Coast).” A hastily scrawled PS asked if she’d be available to come up again next weekend for his birthday. His kids were going to be with him in Mendocino and he wanted to “show them off.” She opened up the boxes and here’s what was inside: a diamond Piaget watch on a knobby shagreen strap; a WW1 gold and ruby-studded powder case with her initials (it once belonged to Jean Harlow); a vast, silk-embroidered Nurata Suzani she had admired in his bedroom; and a crate of blood oranges.

She thought, I am in for some kind of ride.